CIDD offers a variety of professional development both synchronously and asynchronous. See all of the offerings using the button below.
Register for Professional Development
All faculty at Mount St. Mary’s are required to complete two professional development courses, Accessibility and Compliance to help support development of or reinforcement of foundational principles of teaching and learning with technology, along with legal expectations of the classroom. Each course is offered in an asynchronous format.
In this training, faculty identify what it means to create an accessible learning environment. Legal aspects of accessibility and tools to help improve accessibility in the classroom are described.
This training provides an orientation to the Canvas required elements. Topics include expectations for attendance, grading, and syllabi as well as student privacy, copyright, fair use, Creative Commons, and time on task.
The Center for Instructional Design and Delivery (CIDD) welcomes faculty to engage in continuous dialogue about their instructional and technological goals for their courses each semester. Usually these are free-flowing conversations lasting no more than an hour.
The Provost has asked all faculty to use their Canvas Gradebook as a method of communicating grades and performance to students. The Center for Instructional Design and Delivery (CIDD) welcomes faculty to schedule a Gradebook Building consultation focused on "how-to" and best practices, at any point before or during the semester. Usually these are free-flowing conversations lasting around 30 minutes.
The CIDD Fellowship Program provides an opportunity for full-time Mount faculty to increase their professional learning to enhance pedagogical and technological innovation in their courses. Utilizing best practice resources provided by CIDD, CIDD Fellows collaborate with one another and CIDD staff to enhance teaching and learning. As a condition of their fellowship, each Fellow agrees to:
CIDD Fellows will:
Keep an eye on your email for more information and a call to participate. Please reach out to CIDD@msmary.edu with any additional questions or to express your interest.
"Being an inaugural CIDD Fellow helped me think about a range of pedagogical practices related to the design and delivery of course content. The program introduced me to a variety of learning technologies and approaches that make my courses more accessible and engaging. During my time as a CIDD Fellow, I learned how to use Canvas's accessibility tool and advanced design tools to ensure that my Canvas pages and modules are accessible and presented in a simple and engaging way. I also learned how to make my international relations simulations more effective in the hy-flex modality using discussion forums and innovative collaborative tools like Google Jamboards, In addition to learning about these tools, I benefitted from the fellowship as a junior scholar eager to interact and learn from others. I was able to share recent challenges and successes in a very constructive environment. I highly recommend the CIDD Fellowship for those looking for a rewarding path to improving their course design and delivery."
~ William Christiansen, Assistant Professor
"A major course design decision I made from attending the CIDD Fellowship Program was to reorganize the information in my Canvas course modules, making the content more succinct and easier to access by the students. I made this design decision, as a result of viewing and discussing the other CIDD fellows’ Canvas courses during our meetings, in addition to the Canvas course CIDD Fellowship model provided to us by Dr. Laura Frazier. This change has resulted in several students who had previously taken courses with me prior to the CIDD Fellowship, commenting that my courses in Canvas this semester were easier to navigate. I have gained so much valuable information by attending the CIDD Fellowship Program, I plan to continue upgrading applying this knowledge to my Canvas courses and instruction to ultimately enhance students’ learning."
~ Kara Brady, Lecturer
My time as a CIDD fellow has dramatically expanded my toolkit for designing assignments, fostering engagement, and responding to problems in both online and hybrid courses. While I worked with CIDD specifically to redesign and improve some of my regular Summer, online courses, I am already seeing changes in my normal semester teaching practices as well. For instance, I gained a much more sophisticated understanding of the design and page construction tools in Canvas, which has led to me presenting material and course policies to students in different ways through the Pages section of Canvas. Previously, I relied on a standard syllabus template for my course schedule, and just copied and pasted this into the "syllabus" section in my shell. This year, I am creating weekly pages that discuss goals for that week's readings and assignments, as well indicate required readings, etc. While there are extra steps involved, the presentation is much clearer, and CIDD taught me how to design templates that can be reused in multiple course sections that helped me to speed up the process. Similarly, in my Non-Western Rhetorics class, my students have already formed collaborative research groups that are responsible for building group wiki pages within Canvas to share the results of their research with other students. Prior to working with CIDD staff, I had no idea how to facilitate this kind of activity within Canvas.
My in-class activities have also been supplemented through my time as a CIDD fellow. One of my current favorite resources is a tool called Perusall, which I am currently using to conduct guided close-reading activities in my Intro to Literary Studies course. In my most recent class session, my 19 students and I were all able to synchronously read, highlight, and comment on a single copy of a short story. Students were divided into 5 groups, each tasked with identifying and explicating passages of the story that employed literary devices such as diction, narrative tension, etc. The students then used hashtags to sort the comments and annotations, allowing the entire class to quickly locate sections of the story that their classmates had marked as relating to a particular literary feature. At the start of next week, we will use this data to help begin constructing thoughtful theses that reflect the close connections between form and content.
~ Jordan Loveridge, Associate Professor
I am very thankful for my time as a CIDD fellow! I learned a lot, but some of the changes that I am most excited about are related to assessment. I have added a variety of assessment types, including short, frequent, low-stakes formative assessments. To the beginning of my courses I've added course policies assignments that walk the students through the course on Canvas, the structure, the policies, and the syllabus. I've also added much clearer and more direct information on which assignments can be made up or excused. Overall these changes have a huge impact on communication with my students - course policies, content, and student progress are made much clearer!
~ Melanie Butler, Professor
CIDD Fellows are provided with a wealth of resources from the Center for Instructional Design and Delivery, as well as the opportunity to learn from each other. Below are the types of resources CIDD Fellows receive.
Keep an eye on your email for more information and a call to participate. Please reach out to CIDD@msmary.edu with any additional questions or to express your interest.
The Asynchronous Course Design Program invites faculty teaching or wishing to teach asynchronously online to develop a community of practice with CIDD and other faculty. There are two training levels of the program: Fundamentals and Applied Strategies.
New cohorts are offered every Fall, Spring, and Summer. All full-time and adjunct faculty are welcome to participate.
Asynchronous Course Design: Fundamentals consists of attending an in-person kickoff training session and completing an online asynchronous course. Participants are enrolled in the course as a student and complete assignments that support best pedagogical practices while they develop their own asynchronous course. As part of the course requirements, participants complete check-ins with CIDD to support their work. The program culminates with a review of the developed course by Dean or Program Director. Participants receive a stipend for completion.
Asynchronous Course Design: Applied Strategies is intended for completers of the Fundamentals training level and is offered during Summers. In Applied Strategies, participants gather to share lessons learned from implementing the best practices learned in Fundamentals. They also receive advanced training from CIDD in an area relevant to their asynchronous instruction. Examples include increasing engagement in discussions, utilizing YuJa quizzing, or tips for successful asynchronous group work.
Anonymous feedback from Program Completers:
"The check-ins were my favorite part of this training. I love the CIDD team, and it was helpful to be able to ask and follow up on questions in real time instead of having to send emails with a question or to simply hope I'm doing things correctly."
"I found the training to be highly beneficial and help me to make improvements to my course content and delivery in the future."
"Everything was great! It was really helpful to hear from faculty who have both taught in-person for a long time, or who have taught online before. Their feedback and questions helped me rethink strategies for my own course. Thanks!! :-)"
Kickoff trainings are typically held in March, June, and October. Please reach out to CIDD@msmary.edu with any additional questions or to express your interest.